Abstract

Members of the synthetic biology community have discussed the significance of word
selection when describing synthetic biology to the general public. In particular,
many leaders proposed the word "create" was laden with negative connotations. We found
that word choice and framing does affect public perception of synthetic biology. In
a controlled experiment, participants perceived synthetic biology more negatively
when "create" was used to describe the field compared to "construct" (p = 0.008). Contrary to popular opinion among synthetic biologists, however, low religiosity
individuals were more influenced negatively by the framing manipulation than high
religiosity people. Our results suggest that synthetic biologists directly influence
public perception of their field through avoidance of the word "create".